Travis Tackle Britney on Tour

Posted on Nov 16th 2007 5:00PM by Jolie Lash
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Britney Spears may not be playing her hits on a big U.S. tour these days, but fans who miss hearing her most essential classic, 'Baby One More Time,' live might do well to hit one of Travis' Stateside shows, which begin this Saturday in Seattle.

Frontman Fran Healy and bassist Dougie Payne have been, of late, breaking out the band's acoustic version of the song drummer Neil Primrose tells Spinner. "Yeah, we've been playing it," Primrose confirms, shortly before the Scottish outfit left for North America. "When the crowd's really begging for it, we have done it. It's good fun and [Fran and Dougie] quite enjoy it. I don't think we'll do it every night as kind of overkill, but it definitely goes down well, people love it and it is a good version of it."

As it turns out, in their hour-and-a-half-long set, the band Travify other covers too. Though he declined to reveal which specific numbers they honed their playing abilities on, Primrose notes that they have songs by the Kings, the Band and Warren Zevon up their sleeves.

With five artist albums under their belt, including 2007's 'The Boy With No Name,' Travis has plenty to choose from their own catalog too on the trek. Though Primrose admits the band have about 12 tracks they have to play -- culled from fan favorites and singles -- they are digging deep for the remainder of the set list, going all the way back to their first album for this jaunt.

"I think we're gonna play a couple of older songs, maybe more esoteric [ones] from 'The Man Who' or a couple of other tunes from '12 Memories,'" he says. "And definitely we'll be playing one or two songs off the very, very first album, 'Good Feeling,' so there's something there for everyone."

If the band sound like they are having fun, it's because they are. At least one reason for the general levity is their joy at returning Stateside after just a brief trip this past spring. While the dollar's declining value has seemingly encouraged some U.K. outfits to cancel U.S. treks and supermodels to ask for payment in Euros, Primrose says they were thrilled they could make their November tour work.

"A lot of things have changed and the dollar being so weak has made it such that to come and tour even in the states is expensive," he said. "We've had to be careful with how we plan things. You've only got so much time in the year to fit everything in and luckily we can get back a second time. It's nice to come back and especially do the West Coast properly and some of Canada which we've never done before."